Text to Self

Comparing myself to Simon Andrews

Simon goes through a lot in this book and develops himself very well, no only does he start off as an arrogant brat, he goes to an emotional character trying to keep himself and his sister alive. Although I don't find myself to be arrogant or a brat there are some stuff we have in common such as we both act on impulse sometimes, Simon usually acts on his own sometimes erratically causing damage to his sister and himself in the moment. I do impulse actions which get me in deep waters sometimes, we have somewhat of survival knowledge, him learning it from TV shows and the same situation for me learning it from TV. If I was Simon in his place trying to escape North Korea and free our dad, I would try to lay extra low, maybe using Mia to go out into the city to gather supplies as she is actually Korean and would fit in there while not trying to attract attention to ourselves, not only that moving fast and ahead of the military. In the book they get caught as they move too slow, sometimes taking extra long breaks during the journey and adventures which causes military more time to research and look for clues about their whereabouts which makes it hard to escape if they already know where your going to go. Once I was in China if the police questioned Mia's ethnicity thinking she was an escapee, you could always come up with a story about her not understanding due to a situation or such, just trying your best to cheese your way out of the country and once your in call relatives that you know will be able to get you out is most important, calling someone such as your mom is not as great I would say just because you want to escape and if she can't help you escape your wasting precious time that the police could catch up on in a matter of minutes. It's extremely tough to escape North Korea, keeping your guard up, making water through a stilt, using lake water as a source, burning the bacteria. It's all key points that you need to keep your energy up during escaping so that you can bring the evidence you have on North Korea back to your country and demand the removal of your father from the country. That's what I would do, but in both situations Simon worked out, he got his father out and got to live a normal life after that, but the main point is that they were kept extra quiet when they got back, not allowed to speak about North Korea or their experience that at all. You'd think after escaping you'd want to help the other people stuck in that country that are dying cause of no money, no food and no family. It's terrible what's happening in North Korea, but you can't do nothing about it cause they are so isolated and so deep inside that they won't do anything about it. Simon knew what to do, he commanded Mia in their tough times, even when she was getting horrified by the actions of the North Koreans, he kept her in check and led her through even though it was really tough. The both of them were a great duo throughout the story making sure they were safe and always checking behind their backs.